The New Year

I am excited for this new year. I am excited for my new adventures and most of all, I am excited to get back to blogging about any and all of my adventures in food, yoga and travel. Stay tuned for my adventures!

Last weekend was awesome, seriously. Eric went to Susquehanna U so we figured HEY let's go visit there, and visit we did. We pretty much just drank alcohol, ate good food and walked around but it made the weekend feel so much longer even though we didn't arrive in Selinsgrove until like 8pm on Friday night. The weather was nice, the sun was warm, it was just awesome. Inspired by that, I made an agreement with myself to try and do more fun things on the weekends. Living in a place for so long you don't realize all the fun, undiscovered places that are so close by where you can spend a night or even just an afternoon. Plus, I think shorter trips are even better because you're packing everything into a few hours so you'll make the most of your trip! So I found this list from NatGeo, and although some places are a bit far from me for just a weekend, I can't wait to explore some places nearby!!!

I want to feel different this New Years.

I know I'm not the only one who has always been setting some huge goals for the new year, like "I'm going to quit smoking, I'm going to exercise more and eat less junk food," etc. and that's great, we always should have things that we are working towards. Recently, however, with the help of Yoga Journal , I got to thinking a lot about New Years resolutions and why they are so unnecessary. I think most years I make the same resolutions, and by about the end of January I forget what resolutions I ever made or why I made them. When it comes to resolutions or intentions, I realize now that the Why? and How? is so much more important than the What?

If you don't have reasons for a life change, then why make it? If you don't make any kind of plan to change things, you aren't going to just wake up one morning a whole different person. Just recently, I stopped drinking coffee. It was a change I wanted to make for myself to be healthier, have more energy throughout the day and be able to sleep better at night. I have been a pretty avid coffee drinker since as far back as I could remember, and I knew how hard it would be to stop drinking it. But I had good reasons to do this for myself and my own benefit, and once I was determined, the how pretty much came easily. I cut down a little at a time, and found new things to drink in the morning such as very low caffeine teas, sometimes even warm water with lemon and a bit of raw honey. Both of these choices have done AMAZING things for me...my breath smells better without gross coffee breath, my skin seems to hold moisture better without all of the caffeine, my immune system has been great so far this winter, and my favorite part is that by 11am I don't feel like I need to take a nap or drink more coffee. The point I'm making is that I made a plan to do something (even if its a small thing) better for myself, with only myself in mind, and I think that's really what New Years should be about.

In the article I posted above, Kempton talks about recapitulation and developing your own process of letting go of the past and getting excited about the things you have to look forward to. Resolutions are sometimes just empty promises you make to yourself and end up forgetting anyway, so why make them? This year, I'm challenging myself to instead forget the mistakes I've made this past year as well as the things people have done to me that weren't so nice. And maybe set a few intentions for myself to do things better this year. When you admit regrets and bad moments, you are able to forgive yourself and forgive other people, doing this sets you free, too. You're able to get past negative things and you're able to get clutter out of your life, you're free to live simply and at peace with yourself. And when you finally feel free from any pain and guilt of the past year, I, at least, look forward to what the new year will bring and how my new intentions will change me. Already I'm looking forward to bringing to light all of the things I feel need to be cleared from my conscience, and I'm looking forward to starting fresh with the best of intentions. I'd love for you to share any intentions of your own with me as well! I'm sure to share all of mine;)

Peace & Love

Practice Your Purpose

<p>For the past few months I have been living in monotony. Monday through Friday are always strictly for work and my days are consumed with numbers and figures of things I don't care about, money that doesn't belong to me. The days have been made easier with coffee and cigarettes, crutches to keep me awake, alert. Nights pass by with the help of wine to fall asleep, so that I can hope to dream of something better than this. Always on my mind throughout the week is Saturday night when I can finally let loose (maybe sometimes a little bit too loose) and I can go out with my friends, have a few too many jack and cokes and hope to wake up in my own bed the next day. Oh the next day, Sunday, how sweet you are. I always wake up early and either scramble to find my pants, or to get a drink of water if I'm lucky. Then I'll usually go back to sleep for a while until I finally wake up and I'm able to be productive by getting some movies off of my Netflix instant queue.
So what? What's the point? Well, the point is, when I write it all out this is actually a pathetic excuse for an existence. People laugh and joke about people they went to high school with who are now 24, living with their parents, feeding some addiction or unhealthy habits and going nowhere in life and I am that person. I'm the townie that people joke about. I realized this on several of my recent regular Sunday's after nights I don't remember and probably don't really want to remember either. It's taken countless less than graceful moments and some downright foolish and embarrassing moments for me to take a step back and ask myself "What the hell are you doing?" I realized that I lost my purpose this year, I allowed myself to forget who I am and the reasons I am here. I put my heart into someone else and I lost myself, and them as well. I turned into just a body, void of any emotion or soul.
I've been doing yoga for about 2 years but up until recently, I haven't actually been practicing yoga. I've been doing poses and I even have a usual flow I follow, but I haven't actually been practicing real yoga. Like when I'm just sitting there, my mind is always on what happened months ago, what I didn't do right, what I hope I'll get another chance to do but it's never just present. I have never been just present. I have never just set an intention for my day so I could have a purpose every day until one day I just did. Then again the next day. And finally I realized what yoga is to me, it's living with a purpose every single day, and it's made life beautiful. In just the past few weeks, practicing yoga has changed my life and I hope I can share my meaningful life right here while living with a purpose and while I work on bettering myself everyday. All of my terrible habits are on the way out and I'm ready to open my heart to self love, love in it's purest sense. Love is my purpose and life is beautiful.
Peace&love♥

leaves

Like leaves we blow forward,
      back
         to where we started.
 Around in circles,
            no idea where we will end up.
Staying quiet all along.
              Mindless. Spineless.
Like I'm not even a thought.
We fall apart as we go.
Piece me back together when I get where I'm going,
             when I get back to you.
Step on me to stop me,
           break me down just like you do.
We can't wait to move forward,
but we can't overlook now either.
I don't know where I'm going,
         but let the wind take me to you.

Where You Are

There are no words.
It's something new.
      Different.
It's like I went from winter to summer overnight.
And I want to stay here,
Where you are.
There may be no leaves,
But that doesn't mean a thing.
It's still warm here,
Right next to you.
The clouds have broken,
Much like my ribs.
Repaired.
It's all repaired.
Newness brings on change.
Open me up and make me whole.
Open my soul.
Let the sun shine in.
Let me be where you are.

Away With The Sea

Everything you need to know,
Neatly in a letter.
I'll send it out to sea,
When it's gone, I'll let you go.

Everything I never had the courage to say,
It's all right there, dear.
You'll never know,
But I should have said it all that day.


My heart was so full of pain.
Nothing was the same.


So I took some time, love.
I spelled it all out.
It will go away with the tide.
The sun will read it from above.


I'll go to a spot that was special to us.
I'll throw it in the ocean
And the tide will take you away from me.
Gone, is all that you will be,
Gone like me.